Two-Night Titanic Event from National Geographic

National Geographic is observing the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic with a two-part event that includes discussions with “Titanic” director and new deep-diving record-breaker James Cameron and diver Robert Ballard, who was the first to locate the sunken ship in 1997.  On Sunday night, Cameron, who has made more than 30 dives to explore the Titanic, brings together a team of engineers, naval architects, artists and historians to solve the lingering mysteries of why and how an “unsinkable” ship sank. With their combined expertise, they’ll examine the feature film and determine what technology has revealed since its release. An investigation of this magnitude has never been attempted before, and some of the revelations may alter the fundamental interpretation of what exactly happened to the Titanic on April 14, 1912.  The next night, Ballard revisits the iconic ship in an entirely different way—from the perspective of those who set sail on it some 100 years ago. Ballard travels to the shipyards of Northern Ireland to retrace the path of the doomed ship from its’ very incarnation. Throughout his journey, Ballard is driven by one personal question—will the Titanic survive another 100 years? As evidence mounts that the ship is under siege by natural forces, careless visitors and even rogue salvage operators, the man who found it teams with the families of victims and survivors to protect the legacy of the “unsinkable” ship.

In addition, the magazine and the kids’ edition have special Titanic cover stories and there are special interactive resources for computers and iPads online that allow you to take a virtual cruise on the Titanic and visit the people who built the great ship.   And you can watch a number of documentaries about the Titanic online, including Rebuilding Titanic, with contemporary engineers re-creating iconic sections of the Titanic using the materials and methods of 1912.